A lighter update: Pepper the Robot’s comeback at San Diego State University–now AI-equipped for mental health

June 21, 2024 | by

Our old friend Pepper and sidekick Bernard are back…this time with AI. A new research initiative at San Diego State University’s James Silberrad Brown Center for Artificial Intelligence (JSBAIC) is equipping Pepper (left, SDSU photo) and Bernard (right, file photo) with AI capabilities targeted to early recognition of mental health concerns.  The JSBAIC, with the help of a $5 million grant from the James Silberrad Brown Foundation, has already equipped Pepper with functionality that can recognize changes in emotional states, such as speech patterns, voice pitch, or even eye pupils. The purpose would be to assist clinicians with a robotic early warning system for a potential mental health episode. JSBAIC researchers are working with Sharp HealthCare in San Diego (also a beneficiary of the Brown Foundation) in a clinical trial focusing on children with bipolar disorder. The JSBAIC is a spinoff from SDSU’s Fowler School of Business’ Management Information Systems area. JSBAIC interview with NBC San Diego, Daily Aztec  Hat tip to HIStalk 6/19/24

Pepper and Bernard were originally created by Aldebaran Robotics (now Softbank). TTA has been following their development since at least 2016 when tested as robotic greeters at the Ostend, Belgium AZ Damiaan hospital. Softbank is actively marketing Pepper for uses in healthcare, education, hospitality, banking, and retail. Bernard (NAO) is a personal teaching assistant. Pepper has also appeared before the House of Commons select committee on education [left, TTA 25 Oct 2018] to mixed reviews and earlier fainted during a star turn at CES.

 

 

 

News (and robot) roundup: ElliQ companion robot upgrades, named to 2022 TIME list; Robin the Robot introduced for older adult care; Utilita acquires Canary Care (UK)

December 7, 2022 | by

ElliQ, a desktop companion robot targeted to older adults and those with assistive needs, announced an upgrade to their software, a new 2.0 edition of their hardware (left), and a communication app for caregivers. In March, when Intuition Robotics launched it, this Editor noted its unusual shape, versatile small size, controlled by a small tablet with a simplified interface, and its ability to combine both chat interactivity and wellness tracking, including appointments and med reminders.

  • The new software enhances interactivity with deeper conversations, and more content, such as museum exhibit tours, virtual travel, and the recording of memories to send to loved ones. The software upgrades are supported on ElliQ 1.0 and the new 2.0 hardware.
  • The 2.0 hardware is at a significantly larger scale with improvements such as simpler tablet charging, a better screen, and higher quality far field microphone performance. 
  • The new companion app for family members, friends, and caregivers expands capabilities into video calls, text/image/video messages, remote reminder setting, and updates on wellness changes. The free app is available shortly on the Apple Store and Google Play.

ElliQ was also named to TIME’s 2022 list of Best Inventions in the Accessibility category, for innovation in helping seniors live happier and healthier with the use of easy-to-use AI and technology.

In May, ElliQ entered a partnership with the NYSOFA (New York State Office for the Aging) program with 800 older adults in care. Based on their impact study from the first six months of distribution, ElliQ has had some impressive results, such as reducing loneliness in 80% of users and helps 82% stay mentally active. Release (PDF)

Another TIME winner in 2021 for robotics, Robin the Robot, has been introduced in care for older adults at Riverwalk Post-Acute in Riverside, California. Robin’s design is child-sized at 4 feet and mimics a child of about seven years. Most of the Robin pilots are in pediatric hospitals such as UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital, augmenting care through interacting with the child, providing social support through telepresence and unobtrusive patient monitoring. This new initiative in older adult post-acute care not only monitors emotional state by observing patient facial expressions, but also provides companionship and mental stimulation through playing games and conversation at a ‘grandchild’ level. Expper Technologies, a seed-stage company also in California, in October won a $2 million round led by Starta VC with its co-investing platform Liqvest and Formula VC. HealthLeadersMedia  More on Robin’s use in this type of care is in this blog post.

In the UK, Canary Care has been acquired by energy ‘challenger’ provider Utilita. Oxfordshire-based Canary Care expands Utilita’s home services area into assistive technology with wireless sensors that monitor activity, temperature, and portal accessible by family and caregivers. Transaction cost is not disclosed. Canary Care will continue as a separate entity, but will be working with Utilita’s tech arm, Procode, on research and development. Utilita supplies energy and also energy control such as smart meters and monitoring apps. Release (PDF). 

ElliQ companion robot, NYSOFA partner for NY older adult assistance

May 25, 2022 | by

In a step to move robotics more widely into the home, the recently launched ElliQ voice-controlled small-size companion robot from Intuition Robotics will be offered in a pilot program to about 800 seniors in a NYSOFA (New York State Office for the Aging) program. NYSOFA and Intuition Robotics will work with over 830+ case managers to nominate the best candidates for the program. The NY state office is the company’s first state government partner. This is the second initiative in robotics for NYSOFA, the first being an animatronic pet program from Ageless Innovations/Joy for All that reportedly reduces self-reported loneliness by 70 percent.

As we noted in March, ElliQ responds and ‘learns’ by voice commands and through a connected tablet. It is unusually shaped like a small lamp, is animated in place, and initiates conversation that resembles chit-chat after a learning period. Behind this is interactivity–the companion part–checking in to say “good morning,” pointing towards sleep, but also informing family or friends that you’re OK and helping track appointments and medications. ElliQ release

Technology will help ease, but not replace, rising workforce demand in long-term care: UCSF study

August 7, 2019 | by

A just-published research paper by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco Health Workforce Research Center on Long-Term Care, has come to the not entirely unsurprising conclusion that the current technology targeted to the LTC area is helpful but won’t displace any workers from their jobs in the immediate future. The qualitative study evaluated 13 current health tech technologies in 14 areas for their potential impact on the care of older persons as it affects LTC workforce recruitment, training, and retention. 

Some key findings were: 

  • Technology will not even come close to replacing the LTC workforce. At most it will aid LTC workers.
  • Tools such as data collection and remote patient monitoring systems that distribute data to the care team can improve staff’s understanding of client behavior and manage day-to-day tasks
  • Technology can also address workforce recruitment, retention, and staffing efficiency, such as predictive analytics used in identifying candidate suitability, improved staff management in shift scheduling, work location, and clientele, and real time location tracking, can improve the work environment
  • Technologies that monitor health and activity measurements, integrating with predictive modeling, can benefit clients, family caregivers, and care teams, but may suffer from complexity and duplication in their category. 
  • Educational tools also improve care delivery by instructing on proper caregiving techniques, increasing knowledge on medical or behavioral conditions, and by promoting sympathy/empathy

Some of the barriers included:

  • It comes at a cost which LTC is reluctant to pay
    • Initial and ongoing cost with lack of third-party Medicare/private reimbursement
    • Dependence on unattractive long term subscription-based models 
  • Threats to privacy and the security of health data
  • Potential differences in product specificity or acceptance among diverse racial and ethnic groups
  • Technology lacking user-centered design and not developed/tested in conjunction with real-world LTC 
  • Funding: only two US VCs fund LTC tech is a bit of an exaggeration, but the pool of interest is shallow nonetheless

The overall conclusion struck this Editor as less than enthusiastic, perhaps because We’re Not There Yet and it’s still so far away.

The appendix lists the 13 companies surveyed with summaries of each health tech company interviewed: Alma’s House (Sweden), Arena (staffing/recruitment), Canary Health (education/caregiver education), CarePredict (wearables/alert monitoring), Clear Care (management). Embodied Labs (education), Intuition Robotics (ElliQ), GrandCare (monitoring/client engagement), Honor (staffing), La
Valeriane (documentation), LifePod (voicetech/monitoring), UnaliWear (wearables/monitoring), VisibleHand (documentation/EHR).

The study was supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).com. UCSF summary, The Impact of Emerging Technologies on Long-Term Care & the Health Workforce (full text)  Hat tip to Laura Mitchell of GrandCare via Twitter

Robots’ largely positive, somewhat equivocal role in therapy for children with autism and cerebral palsy (HIMSS)

February 14, 2019 | by

A Georgia Tech study presented at this week’s HIMSS19 conference presented findings of an eight-week study of children with specific neurological conditions who were assisted by robotics in specific therapies for movement and cognition. The study began with the simple attraction of children to robots. Robots also don’t have the negative connotations of therapists, and in fact, based on the studies cited, robots  are more trusted than humans by both adults and children.

For a child, robots ‘repetitive and predictable interactions’ can be reassuring (like Pepper in a Belgium hospital two years ago) , along with ‘gamified’ therapies and child-robot direct interaction as well as therapist-guided. The study’s approaches took several forms:

  • Virtual reality therapy games
  • Guided physiotherapy in movement–gross and fine motor skills
  • Cognitive therapy to improve attention span
  • ‘Gamified’ therapy
  • Robot therapy coaching
  • Tablet-based games

At the start of the study, physical and cognitive baselines were taken and retested at four weeks. By eight weeks the difference in movement parameters between normally developing children and those with cerebral palsy had largely equalized. In a second study, when the robots were withdrawn, their improvement decreased, but not back to baseline. The researchers’ concern was of course, dependency on the robots for therapy on a long term basis. HIMSS presentation by Ayanna Howard, professor of robotics at Georgia Tech is currently online–view quickly as usually they are withdrawn shortly after HIMSS is over.  Mobihealthnews

Kompaï robotics gets FABULOS in EU Horizon 2020 automated minibus competition

December 20, 2018 | by

France’s Kompaï robotics, which Editor Steve first profiled in May 2011 (!), is still developing assistive robots for older adults, the disabled, and their caregivers. In another instance of technology integration and crossover into an area other than healthcare, they are a finalist in one of 5 consortia of 16 companies competing in the European FABULOS challenge to develop an automated minibus. Kompaï is partnering with Actia Automobile as the Kompai-Actia Consortium. Phase 1 of FABULOS starts 1 January with a feasibility study with conclusions for the start of prototype development. In autumn, the consortia will move to lab testing prototypes with real-world testing of the final three starting March 2020 in Estonia, Finland, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, and Portugal. The R&D is being financed by the European Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme with a total fund of over €5,5 million. FABULOS release.

A critical take on Pepper’s Parliament Question Time (UK)

November 1, 2018 | by | 1 Comment

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/103886629_mediaitem103886628.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Perhaps this Editor should have been less credulous. Somewhere, this Editor failed to notice a mention in the press she picked up that Pepper’s Question Time before the Commons select committee on education had been fully prearranged and scripted. (Thank you and a Big Tip of The Hat to reader Alistair Appleby for pointing that out.) It made Pepper’s appearance a little less than All That Sensational–more like a pre-recording delivered by an automaton prompted through a Middlesex University student’s smartphone.

Mr. Appleby provided a link to a Wired UK article that bears close reading. It sharply critiques not only the presentation, but also the trivialization of what the select committee was really examining, which was the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” of large-scale automation and its disruptive effects on the work of the all-too-near future.

Wired‘s reporter Gian Volpicelli sat in the front row and acidulously observed that Pepper’s appearance was a PR stunt that detracted from the substantive (I think) conversation that preceded it.

“For one hour before Pepper’s triumphal entrance, three experts from UCL, Nesta and Siemens engaged just in that kind of nuanced, data-based, academic conversation with the Committee’s MPs. They studiously tackled issue after unresolved issue, from AI bias, to education reform, to pure epistemology. “What is knowledge? Why should we believe something?,” asked UCL professor Rose Luckin at one point. “What a wonderful philosophical discourse,” committee member William Wragg MP would remark – under the austere blue gaze of Maggie Thatcher’s portrait. “

It does sound like the usual academic drift-off into La La Land, making it a discussion on Big Issues That Make Your Head Hurt because they have a thousand possible outcomes out of H.G. Wells and Aldous Huxley, but what is remarkable is that neither BBC News nor the Guardian saw fit to mention the experts’ testimony.

Mr. Volpicelli rightly labels Pepper’s appearance a media stunt that gained all the attention versus a real discussion about the societal effect of future robots. Will it be the Pepper-future of cute machines that can perform few tasks and are non-threatening? Will it be the Atlas-future, the one projected by Boston Dynamics’ humanoid athlete-robot that does parkour and skillfully leaps large boxes, funded by DARPA to be a search and rescue robot? Will the future belong to the weirdly humanoid Frubber-skinned Sophia, who fell into the ‘uncanny valley’ at CES last January [TTA 23 Jan] — the same CES where Pepper ‘fainted’ to a non-working slump (schlump?) More than likely, it will be the robotic arm that flips and bags the fast-food burger that is more of the immediate future–and displacing low-wage workers–than any of the above. We need to have a very serious chat about Pepper’s pointless parliamentary pantomime 

Pepper pays a first-ever robot visit to Commons on the future of AI and robotics on education, older adult care (UK)

October 25, 2018 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/103886629_mediaitem103886628.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Pepper paid a visit to a House of Commons select committee on education and became the very first robot to meet with MPs. Accompanied by students from Middlesex University, where Pepper is part of an initiative on teaching primary school-level children, he made a short presentation about the future of artificial intelligence in education and older adult care.

Certainly his introduction has some historic value. Pepper bowed and then said in his rather high-pitched and somewhat Japanese-inflected voice: “Good morning, chair [Robert Halfon]. Thank you for inviting me to give evidence today. My name is Pepper and I am a resident robot at Middlesex University.”

Pepper used voice, gesture, and his embedded front tablet to explain about the role robots like him will play in education and healthcare. At Middlesex, final year students in robotics, education, psychology, and biomedicine like Joana Miranda, one of his two escorts, work with Pepper on projects such as developing numeracy skills in primary school students. According to BBC News, Tory MP Lucy Allan dryly noted that Pepper was “better than some of the ministers we have had before us”.

In healthcare for older adults, the Pepper robot developed by Softbank is part of a major research project funded by the EU, the Japanese Government and UK’s Horizon 2020. The objective of the three-year CARESSES program is to develop a culturally aware robot to provide care suited to a wide variety of individuals and reduce loneliness. Another desired outcome is to relieve pressure in hospitals and care homes by promoting independent living at home with a care robot.

The education committee is examining the “fourth industrial revolution” which impacts STEM education, school curriculum, and workforce skills (and reskilling). Videos on BBC News and Gevul News (YouTube) A tart take on Pepper versus PM Theresa May from The Guardian. (And no fainting, as Pepper did at CES earlier this year.) Hat tip to The King’s Fund weekly newsletter.

PARO: The robotic therapy seal that benefits so few

March 29, 2018 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/paro1jpg.jpg.size-custom-crop.1086×0.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]I have a problem with that cute, robotic seal cub PARO.

More accurately, I have a problem with the ethics of the business model of the Japanese company that makes it, Intelligent System Co. Ltd.

PARO started development in 1993 and the first English press release was in 2004 – a year before Telehealth and Telecare Aware started! Since then the indications that PARO is good for people with dementia have been building and building, as Editor Donna most recently highlighted in this item: PARO therapy robot tested, cleared by NHS for — hygiene.

I have no problem believing, as Donna summarised, “the research has shown that it lowers stress and anxiety, promotes social interaction, facilitates emotional expression, and improves mood and speech fluency.”

However, in response to an enquiry last week, it was confirmed to me that neither price or delivery time information is available but that PARO seals continue to be made individually, by hand. This is a huge production bottleneck and cost.

It is entirely proper for a company that produces handmade cars to have high prices and long waiting lists for their rich man’s toys but I am completely at a loss to conjure up any justification to apply that thinking to PARO. (PARO cost $6,400 in 2017.)

I believe that the insistence that PARO continues to be made in this way is an unethical denial of a benefit to millions of people.

Does Intelligent System not have the will or the skill to scale up production and bring down the cost so that every care home or dementia ward could acquire a PARO (or even a ‘PARO lite’) within a few years? If not, they should license it to a company that can.

At least they should stop pretending that PARO is benefiting people with dementia when it reaches so few.

This Telehealth and Telecare Aware Soapbox item is the personal opinion of TTA founder and Editor Emeritus Steve Hards.

Japan as aging bellwether: experiential VR, claim that robots increase activity by 50 percent

February 9, 2018 | by

Japan’s population is the oldest on average in the world, with over 27 percent of its population aged over 65 and the highest average life expectancy at 83.7 years. Writer Shiho Fukada spent a year researching aging tech supported by the Pulitzer Center. In STAT, he profiles innovation in two areas we’ve highlighted previously: VR experiences for those who are restricted in their mobility and the effect of robots in elder care.

Bringing experiences to the older person. A Tokyo therapist, Kenta Toshima, takes videos of his travels to 29 countries and 55 cities, then shares them with his patients on a smartphone mounted on an inexpensive cardboard viewer to simulate full VR. His concept, Virtually Able, has positive results and he is trying to develop a study. Yet in the US, Dr. Sonya Kim has been developing this in a commercial model via OneCaringTeam and Aloha VR.  [TTA 21 Nov 16 and 11 Nov 17] These VR experiences for residents of long-term care are being researched for easing anxiety, increasing positive feelings, stimulation, and connectedness in older people with mobility difficulties or dementia, with Cedars-Sinai in LA evaluating VR for pain reduction with mixed results.

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Pepper-daughter.jpg” thumb_width=”200″ /]Robotics in monitoring and connectedness. It’s another look at Palro and Pepper [TTA 24 Oct 17], this time in action at the Flos Higashi-kojiya Senior Care Facility in Tokyo, at a nursing home run by the Social Welfare Corporation of Tokyo Seishinkai, and in a home with an older couple. Robots, as we’ve noted, are stepping in the care and connectedness gap.

  • For older adults living at home by themselves, interactive robots like Pepper can aid with tasks but as you’ll see in the video, the wide-eyed Pepper becomes a ‘daughter-bot’ (left and above from the video) that remarkably increases engagement between this older couple in a typically crowded Japanese home.
  • In Japan, as in the West, there’s a shortage of care staff able to engage with residents in senior living. In the video, Palro struts across a table to the admiration of a group of older women in assisted living and leads them in an exercise routine.
  • In a Tokyo nursing home, a Guardian desktop robot not only monitors the well-being of patients in nursing care using audio and video, but also communicates interactively with the patient to give a feeling of personal attention and encouragement. Mr. Fukada at 06:14 quotes a study that residents living with robots are 50 percent more active and that 70 percent without robots are less active, but unfortunately this is not footnoted.

What is evident is that Japan continues to pioneer in robotics for care of older adults and in general (CES), but the takeup in other countries, with some exception for Europe, is not that great–yet. Previously in TTA: Japan’s workarounds for adult care shortage, Japan’s hard lessons on an aging population

 

Robot roundup: doctor cars, teleworkers, robogiggers, errant NAO robots

August 30, 2017 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Overrun-by-Robots1-183×108.jpg” thumb_width=”200″ /]This month your Editor’s been ‘overrun by robots’ in the news! Here’s the roundup for your end of August reading, with an emphasis on how humans interact with robot helpers, especially at work:

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/7-who-needs-a-hospital-when-this-self-driving-doctor-comes.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]The doctor’s car has been around since the 1904 Buick, but the Seattle firm Artefact takes it one step further by combining the self-driving car with a fully automated clinic on wheels that arrives at your home, minus the doctor. Step in and it takes your weight, BMI, posture, respiration, and other sensor-based measurements guided through augmented reality instructions. It has a telemedicine interface in case you need a live virtual doctor. Medication? It’s a dispensary on wheels. Treatments? It will take you to a real doctor or provides AI-driven comparative information on treatment options. Artefact’s concept is part of their endless health monitoring continuum of care, which far more than the Doc Car is a little…creepy. FastCompany Design

Many of us are remote workers, but what if you could be in the office via a telepresence robot? A writer for Wired adopted an EmBot from Double Robotics so she could ‘be in the office’ in San Francisco while living in Boston. Her adventures with human-robot office interactions, developing relationship protocols, self-identification with it, and its many foibles (technical and otherwise) are a hoot. Hat tip to TTA Founder Steve Hards

Clark Kent would activate a robot to take his place at the Daily Planet while dashing off as Superman. Could a robot be your cyberself, working to provide you with an income stream in retirement? Or could you invest in robots working in the short-term robo-gig economy? Joseph Coughlin of MIT’s AgeLab in Forbes is quite certain that we’ll be hiring robot helpers around the house (including serving drinks) and some of us will become robopreneurs, sending out our robots to work. Far fetched? Froyo franchise kiosks (already promoted on radio in the US) serve up robot-prepared and sold frozen yogurt.

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Nao.jpg” thumb_width=”170″ /]For your weekend reading (with coffee and a snack) is a study examining human reactions to a purposely programmed error-ridden NAO humanoid robot versus a behaving NAO in performing interactive tasks. The surprise is that people liked the faulty robot more than the perfect one. The study also gauged the human cues to errant behavior (sidelong gazes, laughter)–cues that could tell the robot it’s in error. To Err Is Robot: How Humans Assess and Act toward an Erroneous Social Robot (Frontiers in Robotics and AI) Second tipped hat to Steve More on SoftBank Robotics’ NAO here.

Robotic exoskeletons are…alive!

June 27, 2017 | by

It seems like ages–in reality, only two years or so [TTA 19 Dec 15]–that this Editor was writing hopefully about advances in exoskeletons such as ReWalk and Wyss, EKSO plus DARPA research in assisting the mobility of paraplegics and others who need assistance in major movement. And then the news went rather dark, though ReWalk is now in its sixth iteration.

So it is heartening to be able to report that an established healthcare robotics company, Toronto’s Bionik Laboratories, is investing in a joint venture with Boston-based Wistron Corporation, an industrial design and manufacturing company, to further develop the Bionik ARKE lower body exoskeleton. Bionik’s emphasis has been on rehabilitative hospital-to-home upper body robotics to assist patients with regaining mobility. The ARKE appears to be both rehabilitative and assistive for patients in the home. Once developed in the JV, Wistron would be the sole manufacturer. 

According to Crunchbase, Bionik raised $13.1 million in a July 2015 private placement specifically to develop the ARKE (MassDevice). This past May, they raised about $2 million from Hong Kong’s Ginger Capital in a separate JV to sell their robotics into the Chinese market. Bionik partnered with IBM starting last year to develop machine learning to analyze the data generated by the ARKE (FierceBiotech).

The target market for the Bionik/Wistron JV is not in this context a surprise. It is the booming older adult Asian market, where the aging/elderly population is projected to hit 983 million by 2050. Many especially in China and India live in rural areas and aren’t covered by any pension or old-age support (ADB Research). It is not clear to this Editor how expensive lower-body exoskeletons will be supported financially either privately or by government.  Bionik release, FierceBiotech

Behave, Robot! DARPA researchers teaching them some manners.

June 9, 2017 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Overrun-by-Robots1-183×108.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Weekend Reading While AI is hotly debated and the Drudge Report features daily the eeriest pictures of humanoid robots, the hard work on determining social norms and programming them into robots continues. DARPA-funded researchers at Brown and Tufts Universities are, in their words, working “to understand and formalize human normative systems and how they guide human behavior, so that we can set guidelines for how to design next-generation AI machines that are able to help and interact effectively with humans,” said Reza Ghanadan, DARPA program manager. ‘Normal’ people determine ‘norm violations’ quickly (they must not live in NYC), so to prevent robots from crashing into walls or behaving towards humans in an unethical manner (see Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics), the higher levels of robots will eventually have the capacity to learn, represent, activate, and apply a large number of norms to situational behavior. Armed with Science

This directly relates to self-driving cars, which are supposed to solve all sorts of problems from road rage to traffic jams. It turns out that they cannot live up to the breathless hype of Elon Musk, Google, and their ilk, even taking the longer term. Sequencing on roadways? We don’t have the high-accuracy GPS like the Galileo system yet. Rerouting? Eminently hackable and spoofable as WAZE has been. Does it see obstacles, traffic signals, and people clearly? Can it make split-second decisions? Can it anticipate the behavior of other drivers? Can it cope with mechanical failure? No more so, and often less, at present than humans. And self-drivers will be a bonanza for trial lawyers, as added to the list will be car companies and dealers to insurers and owners. While it will give mobility to the older, vision impaired, and disabled, it could also be used to restrict freedom of movement. Why not simply incorporate many of these assistive features into cars, as some have been already? An intelligent analysis–and read the comments (click by comments at bottom to open). Problems and Pitfalls in Self-Driving Cars (American Thinker)

Thinking about a location for your health tech startup? Consider…’virtual’ Estonia!

May 9, 2017 | by

‘Extreme digital living’ is the norm in the Baltic country of Estonia, which rebuilt itself from the ground up after the formal dissolution of the Soviet Union (and each citizen receiving a distribution of €10) to one of the most advanced online-only countries in the world, far ahead of the US, the UK, and the rest of the EU. Internet access is by law a basic human right in Estonia. Digital signatures are equal in every way to paper signatures, except for marriage and divorce (a nostalgic touch). Everyday living is paperless and programming is taught in early grades. Live in picturesque Tallinn and need a delivery? It may come to your door via Starship robot, founded by one of the former Skype team. (Did you know that former Skypers have funded much of the Estonian tech and investment boom?) They take data security seriously with the Russian Bear growling (and hacking) on the border, so they created a NATO-accredited cyberdefense center in Tallinn and a whole country backup in a Luxembourg ‘data embassy’. Blockchain is a large part of this–and the government is working on using it for mapping the genome data of its 1.3 million citizens and sell it (deidentified) to precision medicine researchers.

So if you are a US, UK, EU, or even Australian-based developer, or already have a small tech company, why is this of interest? Estonia has opened a door for foreigners that is a most attractive one–virtual residency, no matter where you live. Once you’re an e-resident, simply register your company (online of course) and pay a fee of €145. You now can do business in euros–and fully access the EU. Most companies pay monthly administrative and accounting fees in Estonia, providing the country with income. About 1,400 companies have taken advantage of e-residency. It isn’t a tax haven, but if you do have income in Estonia, their corporate taxes are low–20 percent, compared to 19 percent for the UK, 30 percent for Australia, and a shattering 39 percent for the US (at present). Trading Economics And there is that tech and digital-savvy workforce as an additional incentive. Is This Tiny European Nation a Preview of Our Tech Future? (Fortune) Hat tip to TTA Founder Steve Hards

PwC: your job at risk by robots, AI by 2030?

March 25, 2017 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/robottoy-1.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]PwC‘s latest study on the effect of robotics and artificial intelligence on today’s and future workforce is the subject of this BBC Business article focusing on the UK workforce. 30 percent of existing jobs in the UK were potentially at a high risk of automation by the 2030s, compared with 38 percent in the US, 35 percent in Germany and 21 percent in Japan. Most at risk are jobs in manufacturing and retail, but to quote PwC’s page on their multiple studies, robotics and AI may change how we work in a different way, an “augmented and collaborative working model alongside people – what we call the ‘blended workforce’”. Or not less work, but different types of work. But some jobs, like truck (lorry) drivers, would go away or be vastly diminished.

The effect on healthcare? The categories are very broad, but the third category of employment affected is administrative and support services at 37 percent, followed by professional, scientific and technical at 26 percent, and human health and social work at 17 percent. Will it increase productivity and thus salaries, which have languished in the past decade? Will it speed innovation and care in our area? Will it help the older population to be healthy and productive? And the societal effects will roll on, but perhaps not for some. View this wonderful exchange between Jean Harlow and Marie Dressler that closes the 1933 film Dinner at Eight. Hat tip to Guy Dewsbury @dewsbury via Twitter

Technology for Aging in Place, 2017 edition preview

March 7, 2017 | by

Industry analyst Laurie Orlov previews her annual review of ‘Technology for Aging In Place’ on LinkedIn with six insights into the changes roiling health tech in the US. We’ll start with a favorite point–terminology–and summarize/review each (in bold), not necessarily in order.

“Health Tech” replaces “Digital Health,” begins acknowledging aging. This started well before Brian Dolan’s acknowledgment in Mobihealthnews, as what was ‘digital health’ anyway? This Editor doesn’t relate it to a shift in investment money, more to the 2016 realization by companies and investors that care continuity, meaningful clinician workflow, access to key information, and predictive analytics were a lot more important–and fundable–than trying to figure out how to handle Data Generated by Gadgets.

Niche hardware will fade away – long live software and training. Purpose-built ‘senior tablets’ will likely fade away. The exception will be specialized applications in remote patient monitoring (RPM) for vital signs and in many cases, video, that require adaptation and physical security of standard tablets. These have device connectivity, HIPAA, and FDA (Class I/II) concerns. Other than those, assistive and telehealth apps on tablets, phablets and smartphones with ever-larger screens are enough to manage most needs. An impediment: cost (when will Medicare start assisting with payments for these?), two-year life, dependence on vision, and their occasionally befuddling ways.

Voice-first interfaces will dominate apps and devices. “Instead we will be experimenting with personal assistants or AI-enabled voice first technologies (Siri, Google Home, Amazon Alexa, Cortana) which can act as mini service provider interfaces – find an appointment, a ride, song, a restaurant, a hotel, an airplane seat.” In this Editor’s estimation, a Bridge Too Far for this year, maybe 2018. Considerations are cost, intrusiveness, and accuracy in interpreting voice commands. A strong whiff of the Over-Hyped pervades.

Internet of Things (IoT) replaces sensor-based categories. Sensors are part of IoT, so there’s not much of a distinction here, and this falls into ‘home controls’ which may be out of the box or require custom installation. Adoption again runs into the roadblocks of cost and intrusiveness with older people who may be quite reluctant to take on both. And of course there is the security concern, as many of these devices are insecure, eminently hackable, and has been well documented as such.

Tech-enabled home care pressures traditional homecare providers – or does it? ‘What exactly is tech-enabled care? And what will it be in the future?’ Agreed that there will be a lot of thinking in home care about what $200 million in investment in this area actually means. Is this being driven by compliance, or by uncertainty around what Medicare and state Medicaid will pay for in future?

Robotics and virtual reality will continue — as experiments. Sadly, yes, as widespread adoption means investment, and it’s not there on the senior housing level where there are other issues bubbling, such as real estate and resident safety. There are also liability issues around assistance robotics that have not yet been worked out. Exoskeletons–an assistance method this Editor has wanted to see for several years for older adults and the disabled–seems to be stalled at the functionality/expense/weight level.

Study release TBD